


Sentiment

by KallanEboi



Series: These are the things that are strange and yet somehow normal [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Sex, Sexual Content, This is the porn chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:35:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KallanEboi/pseuds/KallanEboi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Woman has left, her phone is still there, and Sherlock has nightmares too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentiment

**Author's Note:**

> Part four of the "These are the things that are strange and yet somehow normal" series. Can be read separately, but it'll make more sense if you read the first three parts.

Sherlock keeps Irene Adler’s phone. I’m not sure what to make of that. I find it in a drawer as I’m searching for a file two or three days after my impromptu meeting with Mycroft, but I leave it there.

Sherlock’s mind works in ways I’ll never understand. I’ve studied the brain, the neural pathways and the connections between the cerebellum and the cerebrum and the spinal cord and the body and everything that’s encased therein, but Sherlock’s neural labyrinth cannot be mapped by anyone but him. He keeps Irene’s phone but he never acknowledges it, never takes it out, at least as far as I can tell. When she does come up, she’s “The Woman,” as though just mentioning her name would conjure her back from the dead.

One night, I wake up very suddenly, but I can’t figure out why. I haven’t had a nightmare, there hadn’t been any loud noises, and no one had rung the bell (the number of times it had rung in the middle of the night had almost prompted me to disable it again, but the thought of Mrs. Hudson’s wrath was scarier than having to get up at two in the morning). I’m in Sherlock’s bed, and he’s curled on his side with his back to me.

“You need to run,” he says, clear as a bell, voice hard and just slightly frantic. I sit up, panicked, staring at the empty bedroom. I look at him, confused.

“Run,” he says again, and then it dawns on me.

He’s _dreaming_.

“Sherlock,” I say. He doesn’t stir. I tentatively place a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. He tenses and gasps, but that’s all he does. “You wake up quieter than me, at least.”

“John,” he says, his voice rough with sleep. He turns over, looks up at me. “What?”

“You were dreaming,” I reply, smoothing his hair away from his forehead. It’s damp with sweat.

“So why’d you wake me up?” he asks, sounding grumpy.

“You were telling someone to run,” I reply, and he freezes. “I thought you might welcome the interruption.” I resolutely do not ask who he was talking to. He takes a deep breath, holds it, and lets it out. I keep stroking his hair, running my fingers through the curls the way he had done for me that first night we slept here. He studies my face, leaning into the hand stroking his hair.

“You’re being sentimental,” he says finally. His tone is accusing.

“Never mistake sentiment for weakness,” I reply. He looks at me, surprised. I expect him to come back with a cutting remark, but instead he pulls me down and kisses me.

There’s something desperate in the kiss. His hands hold on just a bit too tightly, his tongue just slightly too insistent. I allow him to roll me over so he’s on top of me, pinning me down. He runs his hands over my hair, my chest, my stomach and arms and anywhere else he can reach.

“What do you want?” I ask as his mouth moves down my jaw, trailing kisses to my neck. “Tell me what you want, Sherlock.”

He lifts his head to look at me, his hands cradling my face. “I had been caught and you wouldn’t run,” he said, his voice very nearly a whisper, his eyes suddenly unfocused with the memory. I reach up and run my hand up and down his back, rubbing circles against his shirt. “I told you to run, and you wouldn’t leave me.”

“Never leave a man behind,” I reply softly, and his gaze sharpens. I’d thought I’d gotten used to the way he seems to look straight through my skull and into my brain to read it like a book, but being this close to those eyes is something else entirely. “I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

And suddenly, he’s kissing me again, and there are insistent fingers tugging at the hem of my shirt. I push him back so we can sit up, although it means losing the contact, and he tugs my shirt over my head as I pull on the hem of his. He stops touching me just long enough for me to pull his shirt off.

He pushes me back down, presses our hips together, and we both groan at the contact.

He makes a frustrated noise and I lift my hips up enough for him to pull off my pants. He quickly dispenses with his own and slides one hand down to stroke both of us at the same time. I push up into his hand. He shifts, finding a rhythm that’s fast and relentless and somehow just as desperate as his kisses had been earlier.

I arch up as the pleasure starts pooling low and hot. His face is buried in my neck, kissing and sucking there, finding that spot just below my ear that makes me gasp.

“Come on, John,” he says, his breath in my ear making me shiver and groan. We’re both so close to the edge, and it’s one...two... _three_...

After we’d both cleaned up and are lying on the bed again, he says, “I went to meet Mycroft without you. She showed up. I know I’d said I’d try to tell you when I was going to meet a psychopath...”

“She wasn’t a psychopath,” I interrupt. “She was greedy and scared. There’s a difference.”

“She worked for Moriarty,” he says. “That phone of hers with all the secrets, she went to him to make a profit off of them. In return, he wanted her to undermine me. She claims he didn’t want anything in return for advice on how to manipulate me.”

“He knew that she’d do it anyway,” I reply, realising. “He knew she’d do her best to find a way to make a fool out of you and Mycroft and all he’d have to do would be to sit back and watch the show.”

“So it seems,” he says. I wait for him to reply, but he seems to be waiting for something himself.

“I’m not angry,” I say, and he sighs quietly. I could almost think it was relief. A yawn escapes me, and I looked over at the clock. Half three. “It’s time to sleep.”

Sherlock tugs me close, tucking an arm around my waist. “She’s not dead,” he whispers to me. “She’s not in witness protection in America.”

“What?”

“She was caught by a terrorist group,” he says, and I’m so shocked I can’t even begin to ask how he knows about the conversation I’d had with Mycroft. “I rescued her, helped her get to freedom, and left her at an airport in Berlin.” He paused. “I know why you lied to me, and I’m not angry.”

“So you just _let_ me lie to you?” I ask.

“I did,” he replies. “It made you feel better, and I knew the truth, anyway, which is actually closer to the lie you told me than to what Mycroft believes happened. But it doesn’t matter now, it’s done.” I feel a light pressure on the top of my head, like he’s pressed a kiss to my hair. “Go to sleep, John.”

The next morning, Henry Knight is in our sitting room, telling us a story about the gigantic hound that killed his father.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that got porny. The last two parts should be up fairly soon, I've got a decent start on both of them.


End file.
